• NIGERIA

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has
promised that the Federal Government will continue to fight against the
illicit trafficking in Cultural Property.

Declaring open an
exhibition of repatriated Nigerian artefacts in Lagos on Thursday, the
Minister challenged the National Commission for Museums and Monuments
(NCMM) to double its efforts in checking the illicit trade in cultural
property.

â€œIt is my wish that the NCMM will begin to look at means
and opportunities to re-invigorate its export and clearance permits
operations and even devise other methods of checking the illicit
trafficking in cultural property.

â€œI was reliably told that there
was the system of taking the pictures of all the objects leaving the
country and the passport numbers of those exporting non-antiquities out
of the country. I think the NCMM should go back into all of the systems
that can be used to stop, check and stem the illicit trafficking in
cultural property of Nigeria,â€ he said.

Alhaji Mohammed also urged the NCMM, the Nigeria Customs Service and
other law enforcement agencies to be more vigilant especially at the
nationâ€™s sea ports, airports well as land borders, to check these abuses
and illicit trade.

He thanked the Ambassadors and Cultural
Attaches of the United States of America, France, Canada, Switzerland
and South Africa, where the artifacts were intercepted, and appeal to
them not to relent in their efforts in that regard.

â€œI must thank
you the more for respecting the International Laws and in particular the
respect of the Red-List Agreement of 1997 that has declared the export
of these Nigerian cultural property illegal,â€ the Minister said.

He
gave the assurance that Nigeria will fully domesticate the provisions
of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing
the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property, which was
ratified by Nigeria on 24 Jan. 1972 and came into force three months
later.